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Surge in spending reflects Russia-Ukraine war and ‘increasingly insecure world’, according to leading think tank.
World military spending reached an all-time high of $2.24 trillion in 2022, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fuelled a sharp jump in military spending across Europe, according to a leading defence think tank.
Global spending rose for the eighth consecutive year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said on Monday in its annual report on global military expenditure.
There was a 13 percent rise in Europe, the steepest in at least 30 years.
SIPRI said most of that was linked to Russia and Ukraine, but other countries also stepped up military spending in response to perceived Russian threats.
“The continuous rise in global military expenditure in recent years is a sign that we are living in an increasingly insecure world,” Nan Tian, senior researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. “States are bolstering military strength in response to a deteriorating security environment, which they do not foresee improving in the near future.”
Moscow invaded and seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014, and backed separatist rebels in the country’s east before it began its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
SOURCE:ALJAZEERA
